Friday, March 21, 2014

Doctor Dharma fails Dharma for Doctors

It is not as we have been advised "first do no harm."

Instead the motto for the (not so) good doctor apparently is "money helps my conscience go to sleep."

Even if he does not get the stipulated 14 years in jail he should be banished from the medical community as is deserving of the first ever person in the UK to be prosecuted for female genital mutilation. Similar contempt should be also directed to doctors who perform sex-selective abortions....

A London doctor and another man will
become the first people to be charged in Britain over female genital
mutilation, state prosecutors announced on Friday....Another man, Hasan Mohamed, is
accused of intentionally encouraging an offense of FGM, and of aiding,
abetting, counselling or procuring Dharmasena to commit the offense.

"It was alleged that following
a patient giving birth in November 2012, a doctor at the Whittington Hospital,
in London, repaired FGM that had previously been performed on the patient,
allegedly carrying out FGM himself," said Alison Saunders, director of
public prosecutions. "Having carefully considered
all the available evidence, I have determined there is sufficient evidence and
it would be in the public interest to prosecute Dr Dhanoun Dharmasena."

Some 100 to 140 million girls and
women globally are thought to have undergone FGM, which ranges from removal of
the clitoris to more widespread mutilation, and can lead to infection and
long-term severe pain.

FGM has been illegal in Britain
since 1985 but no-one has ever been prosecuted.

There have been increasing calls on
police and the government to act, and last month ministers introduced a new
requirement on British hospitals to keep a record of patients who have been
subjected to FGM.

The latest Department of Health
figures from 2007 suggest that 66,000 women in England and Wales are living
with the consequences of FGM, and a further 23,000 girls under the age of 15
are at risk every year.

FGM was first made illegal in
Britain under a 1985 law, which was extended in 2003 to make it an offense for
British nationals or permanent residents to carry out FGM abroad or seek FGM
abroad, even where it is legal.